Born Aug. 31, 1887, in Vienna; died there Sept. 17, 1958. German chemist and geo-chemist.
After completing his studies at the universities of Vienna, Munich, and Glasgow, Paneth conducted research in related fields of chemistry, geology, and astronomy. He taught at the Prague Institute of Technology and at the universities of Hamburg and Berlin. He also lectured on atomic chemistry at the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London. From 1939 to 1953 he was a professor at Durham, and in 1953 he was appointed director of the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry at Mainz. He was the first to study the absolute age of meteorites, formulating a precise method of determining the helium content of meteorites.
Paneth was a member of the Royal Society of London from 1947, an honorary member of many scientific associations, and president of the Joint Commission on Radioactivity of the International Council of Scientific Unions from 1949.